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Why Sleep Is the Foundation of Health Optimization and Longevity · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

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  I actually wanted to talk to you a little bit about sleep.
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  Literally sleep is linked to longevity more than any other behavior that you can have.
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  I'm a firm believer that there is no point in us trying to optimize until we've already laid a firm foundation.
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  So what are some of the things we can do to keep that sleep under control?
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  Well, first of all,
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  Hey, guys, Dr. Mark here with Age Defiantly.
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  And today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about sleep.
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  Now, this is kind of timely to me.
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  First of all, because I've had two nights of terrible sleep, which is all self-induced.
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  But I was a guest on a podcast yesterday and I thought this was really entertaining because
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  the host had done his homework and a lot of times they don't.
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  But he says to me, I'm laughing because I watched a video and he goes,
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  and as I'm watching, he goes, I'm waiting for some profound answer because I watched a podcast
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  that you were in before and the interviewer said, what are your three top health hacks or
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  biohacks that you recommend? And he says, he goes, I'm waiting for this really deep, deep message.
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  He goes, and the answer was fasting, movement, and sleep.
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  He goes, and I just sat there kind of profound for a minute like, wow, that makes so much sense.
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  That was just those are so basic because I expected something so much deeper and he goes and it
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  turns out that the simplest things actually were the deepest things. So I actually wanted to talk
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  to you a little bit about sleep because I'm a firm believer that there is no point in us trying
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  to optimize until we've already laid a firm foundation. And in so many cases, we're looking for
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  hacks. We're looking for a pill, a supplement, a technology, and anything that's going to just
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  push me to the next level. And the reality is, is like, if you're not already 80% there, I'm just
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  going to use that number, but significantly already there. If you're at 40%, getting to 90 is
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  ridiculous. Like nutrition, exercise, and I'm going to say sleep hygiene are probably the three
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  foundational things that everybody needs to had dialed in before optimization even matters.
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  And this topic of sleep, unfortunately, I'm going to say gets ignored so much because I mean,
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  I remember the days when getting two to three hours of sleep and then going to work the next
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  morning felt like a badge of honor. Like the fact that somebody could sleep very little and still
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  function was, I mean, again, it was like it was heroic to do that. And I remember the college days
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  of all nighters and not sleeping at all throughout the night. And we, we bored that as some kind of
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  badge. Today, I would never do that. Absolutely not intentionally. We had a staff member recently
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  who stated the office all night to work on a project. And I found myself adding him because I was
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  like, you need to go home. You need to go that's not healthy. I don't want that for you. Like,
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  I'm so glad you got the work done, but I do not want that for your house because it's not good.
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  And I want to talk you a little bit about what that looks like specifically after we pass 40
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  because what happens is things do start to change. There is an aging at a cellular level that takes
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  place. And I want to give you some tips and tricks and things that you ought to be doing to ensure
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  that your sleep is not just about the quantity of hours, but about the quality of the hours that
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  are in there. So the first thing I want to do is talk about some things that absolutely shouldn't
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  happen or things that we think benefit us, but don't. A first big thing I want to do,
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  falling asleep to the television, such a terrible plan. And I'm going to tell you for a couple
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  different reasons. One, when you're falling asleep with a television on, you're doing two things.
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  One, you're keeping your brain in an active mode prior to going into restoration. Not only does
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  this at a subconscious level keep your brain working, but when you're supposed to be quieting
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  everything, even though you may fall unconscious, your subconscious is still listening to that
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  television. It is still focusing on the distraction that's going on in the room, meaning that you
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  don't actually get the right amount of sleep that you need because your brain activity is still
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  wired, even though your, your still continuing to be unconscious. Second thing, sleeping in dark
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  rooms. It is imperative that we are sleeping in the dark. And this is important for multiple
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  reasons, not just when we sleep, but even in the hour or two prior to falling asleep, dim light
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  is particularly important. And we can go back to our prehistoric roots and whatnot. But the reality
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  is is that when the sun goes down, biologically, things start shifting in our bodies. And when that
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  happens, our bodies actually naturally release melatonin. That melatonin starts to calm our
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  system. It's what helps us calm down and prepare us for sleep even before we fall asleep.
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  Throughout the night, we metabolize that melatonin and we should wake up refreshed. But when we're
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  active, right up until the moment we go to bed, what ends up happening is we end up
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  tricking our systems into not knowing that there's a wind down stage. Imagine the case that
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  every time you got to a red light, you kept your foot on the gas right up until you slammed on the
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  brake. That's what you're doing at night. When you are active, active, active, active, active,
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  then you go to bed and fall asleep. It's like slamming on the brakes when you get to a red light
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  rather than gradually slowing down before you get there. And we all know how abrupt that feels.
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  The other thing I want to point out is we have a tendency to try to sleep in environments
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  where there is chaos and clutter. I just read something the other day and it was it was timely
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  because I knew we were going to be doing this episode and it was talking about this feng shui
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  type way of having your bedroom organized and it's so funny to me because it was crossing my mind.
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  I'd moved recently and when my bedroom is a clutter and there's clothes around and there's
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  just things that are disorderly, it affects my sleep because subconsciously my body doesn't feel
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  like it's in a safe place which continues that autonomic nervous system. My sympathetic nervous
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  system rides high simply because I'm in an environment that doesn't feel calm. It doesn't feel
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  peaceful. It feels chaotic and my mind recognizes that now physiologically this has a lot of
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  impact as well because when my brain is triggered into the sympathetic nervous system where I'm
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  in this non-peaceful environment, it actually raises cortisol levels. Well cortisol levels are linked
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  to not just my mood and keeping me stimulated but there are stress hormones. So in addition to being
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  in a chaotic environment, I'm triggering stress hormones and stress hormones will actually affect
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  the digestion and you know what's going to want to hear this even leads to weight gain. So
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  there's this whole cycle of things that are playing in here. Another myth, drinking a glass of wine
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  before bed is going to help you fall asleep. Well actually that was only half myths because it will
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  help you fall asleep. The problem is is everything gets disrupted in about four hours and that's what
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  leads to this 2 a.m. 3 a.m. wake up time that too many people, especially if you're 40 and above
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  or 50 and above, they recognize that right? You try to go to bed and have a good bedtime at 10,
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  maybe 11 o'clock at night and then you end up waking up at two, three o'clock in the morning.
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  Well the fact that you can't fall back asleep and get this vicious cycle, this is how
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  brains work. You can't fall asleep and what ends up happening from there? Well now you start playing
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  all of these scenarios about what you're going to feel like in the morning and I'm going to have
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  to get up for this meeting and oh my gosh, I need to fall back asleep because I need to be up and
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  refreshed. I've got this to do in the morning. I can't be tired. The problem is what is that doing
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  that's triggering more stress hormone because now you're getting yourself freaked out about what's
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  going to happen tomorrow. This cycle starts repeating. You released more cortisol. You end up staying
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  awake longer because you got yourself panic about not being able to fall asleep, which is what's
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  causing you to not be able to fall asleep. It's a vicious cycle and I want to say this is
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  particularly important for men who are again that over 40 over 50 crop because as men start to age
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  and the prostate changes, you'll notice a lot of men who will get up in the middle of the night
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  because they need to use the restroom. The same thing starts to happen. Physiologically, things
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  aren't the same. So what are some of the things we can do to keep that sleep under control now that
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  we've kind of mishbusted some of that? Well, first of all, we need to start winding down sooner
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  than the minute we plan to fall asleep. If you are in bed and trying to be asleep by 11 pm,
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  I strongly recommend to you that you're already planning your sleep cycle by eight o'clock,
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  nine o'clock at night. You should already be winding down and dimming the lights in your house.
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  You see a lot of people where blue blocker glasses, if they're watching the TV, you are so much
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  better reading a book an hour before going to bed than you are watching the TV. You're sitting
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  on a cell phone. Second thing, let's get the EMF and the Wi-Fi signals out of the bedroom because
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  whether you like it or not, they are just bathing you in EMF toxicity throughout the night.
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  Not okay. Number three, avoid alcohol consumption. This is a true confession on my part and I hope
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  it stays, but I haven't had alcohol in mucks. And I just made a decision one day. I'm like,
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  you know what? This doesn't add value to my life. I'm just not even going to do it. And I'll tell you
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  what, like my sleep patterns have gotten so much better. Not that I was ever a heavy drinker, but
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  it's amazing the subtlety that does that. Food. We have a tendency to eat late at night and I come
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  from a family where it was very European in nature and we ate late. I mean, that was what happened
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  because you work late and when you work late, I tend to go to the gym after work and then I get home
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  from the gym and I want to have something to eat afterwards. Well, that sometimes pushes me to
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  dinner at 8.39 o'clock at night. It's not healthy. We need to be having our last meal at least
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  four hours before going to bed. And part of the reason behind that or the probably most of the
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  reason behind that is that our body needs time, our digestive system needs time to slow down
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  and and start to void whatever's in the stomach prior to going into the first few hours of our
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  night, which are typically deep sleep. And deep sleep should be probably an hour and a half to two
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  hours of your total sleep time, but that deep sleep is the time that your body actually goes into
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  recovery mode. You actually heal during that deep sleep time. After deep sleep, we talk about
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  REM sleep and REM is rapid eye movement, REM sleep is actually when your brain recovers. So
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  there's actually two different cycles going on while you're asleep. You've got about an hour and a
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  half to two hours of deep sleep, preferably when your body is repairing and decompressing. So think
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  about food intake before you actually start winding down in bed. You're literally putting fuel in
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  the tank and then telling your body to repair the body's repair. We're not even done with the work
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  yet. So you've got to give your body that time the down down regularly. Then we move into this
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  REM sleep, which not only takes place after our deep sleep, it cycles throughout the night,
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  but that REM sleep is actually when our brain repairs. And that's when we actually think about it like
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  if for a computer programmer, it would be the equivalent of like a defrike command and in a database.
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  It is you're finding all of the miscellaneous parts. The body starts, the mind rather starts moving
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  these things, categorizing things, actually submitting short-term memories into long-term memories,
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  figuring out patterns and really working on unresolved things throughout the night,
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  but you need that hour and a half to two hours of REM sleep also to keep your mind healthy,
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  which is often like some people wake up fatigued, but mentally restored. Some people wake up and
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  their bodies are fine, but their brains are burned out. And all of that depends on the input that
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  you're putting into your body during that time. What my recommendation is, pay attention to the
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  details. Track your sleep. Find out, behaviorally, take notes of things that happened throughout the
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  day or stress signals that took place throughout the day. Take notes of when you had your last meal.
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  Take notes of your the dark in your room or the quiet in your room or the amount of television
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  or screen time that you consumed prior to falling asleep. Take all of that into account and I
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  strongly encourage you. Make some patterns out of that and then track it. I use my aura ring.
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  I think aura ring actually does probably the best job of sleep tracking. And then I'll go on my
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  mobile app. If those of you, those of you who are familiar with aura ring and you can see, I'll
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  go to my sleep session and it'll tell me how much that book was my total sleep. What was the
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  efficiency? It'll move into questions about deep sleep versus REM sleep versus light sleep.
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  And then it'll give you your lowest heart rate. And then we'll also give you your average HRV
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  score, which personally, I've got to be honest, HRV to me is overrated. I think it's actually
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  measured in too many strange ways. But we live in a in a time in a society. We are moving so fast.
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  We have so many things going on throughout the day. We have stressors all day long. It's one of
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  the reasons why we grew up here in the phrase, you know, never go to bed angry or never, you know,
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  never not resolve a fight before going to bed for couples. And the reason for that is very
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  physiological. And while it's relational, it's physiological because if you fall asleep angry,
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  I guarantee you, it will be an unrestful night because your mind's not able to shut off.
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  And those of you who've ever woken up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack,
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  a panic attack, you know what I'm talking about. All of these things play in because it's not
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  just that sleep is it is in seven or eight hour event. It is permeating into every part of our
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  day the day after, ultimately turning into issues in our lives because when our bodies don't have a
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  chance to regenerate, when our metabolism's don't have a chance to flush toxins while we're in
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  that deep sleep, when our brains don't have a moment to actually inventory and file things that
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  are going on throughout the day and actually reorganize the common patterns that have taken place
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  all day long. We end up hurting ourselves physiologically, literally sleep is linked to longevity
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  more than any other behavior that you can you can have. I strongly encourage you look for things
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  related to sleep read up on this topic of sleep. And the last thing I want to leave you one of
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  the things quit taking melatonin. Can I just say that like people are taking melatonin to try to
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  fall asleep and the problem is is once you take melatonin, you train your body that melatonin
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  is exogenous and it stops producing it the way that is should what's happening is we're signaling
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  not to produce our own. Now melatonin is a secretion that actually triggers as soon as it starts to
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  get dark outside and this is just our circadian rhythm working. And as that circadian rhythm triggers
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  nightfall, our body starts to produce melatonin about two hours ish before we start to cycle to sleep
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  and it helps our bodies down regulate it helps regulate cortisol levels and it actually helps
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  to sleep throughout the night. This is a naturally occurring substance. We're not trying to introduce
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  this from the outside because what happens is your body metabolizes that melatonin throughout the
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  night and you wake up without melatonin in your system anymore, which is why you're waking up
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  naturally. And I wanted to recommend to you my favorite sleep supplement true z's. And true
• 16:28
  z's is a product by nature city and everything nature city does is top of the line. I love it. They've
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  used this tagline like if we wouldn't take it, we won't make it. I'm going to recommend to you
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  non melatonin infused melatonin free true z's which uses natural substances and natural
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  ingredients to help you fall asleep stay asleep and get more restful sleep. Check out true z's. I
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  encourage you. You're going to love it and I encourage you read up on sleep hygiene your sleep
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  wake up at the same time every single day and treat sleep like a discipline and not like a time
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  out for your activities throughout the day. It is so important. I cannot stress this enough.
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  Please go sleep, go to bed early tonight and get the rest that you've earned the entire day long.
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  We look forward to having you next time on age defiantly and I am Dr. Mark Yell and I will see you soon.